


Nothing to Be Afraid of

by enjambament



Series: That One Time in Amsterdam [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Secret Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 10:56:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjambament/pseuds/enjambament
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of that one time in Amsterdam when Arthur and Eames got a little bit married. It's also the story of how nothing is quite as simple as that. Or maybe, it’s a story about saying <i>yes</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing to Be Afraid of

**Author's Note:**

> moar reposting. reposting forever.
> 
> Chronologically in this universe, the first section of this fic takes place a couple months before Cobb and Mal get stuck in Limbo, a year before Mal dies, and four years before the Fischer Job (movie). The other four sections are marked accordingly.
> 
> [( **More notes on the time line** )](http://enjambament.livejournal.com/3129.html#cutid2)   
> (contains spoilers for all fics in this universe including this one and the film too I guess, but it’s too late for that if you’ve already read to here).

[1]

“Cobb, look, about the job with that kid in New Mexico – I can’t do it,” Arthur says. He’s perched on a leather chair in Cobb’s hotel suite, watching the rain drowning the Seattle skyline in watery shades of blue and grey. They’ve just finished training a billionaire’s daughter’s subconscious and Arthur is exhausted. He wants to go home. 

He misses his own bed with the flannel sheets for winter, and the claw foot tub in the bathroom that doesn’t smell of knock-off Lysol and bleach. He misses making toast in his kitchen with the sandwich press that sometimes gets stuck shut. He misses sitting on the fire escape and watching the skyscrapers light up just over the tops of the Central Park trees.

He misses Eames, most of all -- though it’s against his nature to admit it. The way Eames shifts onto his side in his sleep to throw an arm over Arthur’s waist and his absolutely _perfect_ omelettes and the stupid look Eames gets when he watches Arthur get dressed in the morning that seems to say _don’t bother_ and _oh God, the way you button your shirts_ at the same time. 

Eames has been doing forgeries in Thailand for the last two weeks, but he called Arthur last night to say he’s just gotten home. In only seventeen hours, Arthur will be there too. He is pathetically eager. Ever since the seven months they spent apart, Arthur gets a little jumpy whenever they go longer than a month without seeing each other. It’s ridiculous weakness, but what’s Arthur going to do about it?

“ _What?_ ” Cobb asks, setting his cell phone back on the table. He looks up, surprised. His mouth twists as he studies the exhausted slope of Arthur’s shoulders. “It’s not for another two months, Arthur. I’m tired too. I want to go home and see Mal and the kids just as much as you want to go back to New York. I’ve scheduled plenty of time between.”

Arthur avoids Cobb’s gaze too well for it to be accidental. “That’s not the trouble, Cobb. I just can’t do it then.”

“Arthur,” Cobb says, his voice terse, “I need you for this one. We’ve already got the architect working on an entirely weightless maze. No one does zero-G like you.”

“I’m sorry. I have plans the first week of September.”

“What, is it your anniversary?” Cobb asks, sarcastic and sounding a little annoyed. He can’t remember a time Arthur ever backed out on him. Arthur swallows suddenly. It’s the sort of tell a person who didn’t know Arthur would never notice. Unfortunately, Cobb knows Arthur too well.

“Yes,” Arthur says, sharply.

“Yes?” Cobb asks, “What do you mean, _yes_?”

“ _Yes,_ it’s our anniversary.”

Arthur can’t remember a time Cobb looked so comically surprised. In fact, his mouth is open just a little; Arthur guesses it’s probably the closest a man like Cobb -- who has more class and control over himself than anyone Arthur’s ever met -- has ever come to dropping his jaw. Cobb is now visibly angry, too. Arthur wonders if he’s about to have a fight. Cobb never _seemed_ to mind that he and Eames were together – not that they talked about it very often.

“You’re _married_?” Cobb asks. “Since _when_?”

“Four years,” Arthur says. “Five in September. I was on the Southwark job last year, remember, with the shark pit? We missed it, so I’ve promised this time. We’re…going to Monte Carlo.” 

Cobb won’t look at him. He’s frowning, disappointed, and maybe mean. Arthur feels himself coiling up defensively. He leans back in his chair, a habit that has sort of developed into a nervous tick.

“Does Eames know?”

Arthur looks at him, tilting his head a little in confusion. _Does Eames know about what?_ he wonders. 

“Uh…” he begins.

“You know,” Cobb interrupts, standing abruptly and pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers, “I don’t comment on your relationship very often; I understand that it’s your private life. I don’t ask either of you about why you never work together or why you’re always sending him fucking _telegrams_ like it’s the Victorian era or about how goddam casual you seem around each other even though you’ve been together since _before_ I knew either of you. But Eames is my friend, and I _know_ he loves you. I thought…I thought…”

“Cobb,” Arthur says, huffing a laugh.

Cobb continues, “I thought you loved him. I know I’ve been a sap since I married Mal, but you two were…”

“Dom,” Arthur, says, louder. “Dom, I’m married to _Eames_.”

Cobb falls silent, “What?”

“Eames and I are _married_ , Cobb.” 

He slips his hand into his trouser pocket; when he pulls it out, he’s holding a plain rose gold wedding band. 

Cobb leans back and lets out a breath, smiling. “I wouldn’t have guessed that,” he says, contemplatively. 

“Evidently,” Arthur replies.

“I didn’t realise you both…saw what you had together. I mean, I think I’ve only seen you kiss twice.”

Arthur’s expression darkens, “We’re careful to keep it that way. It’s not you, specifically, Cobb. It’s just…we’re very valuable to each other. It’s been used against us.”

Cobb’s eyes widen a bit as he understands the unsaid levels of Arthur’s careful words. He slides his hand through his hair as if dusting something distasteful away, then leans towards Arthur conspiratorially. His smile changed to a smirk, “I can’t believe you _married_ Eames. How the fuck did that _happen_?”

Arthur grins, one dimple appearing. It’s a smile Cobb suddenly recognizes as the one Arthur uses for Eames – only Eames. He wonders about the little pieces of Arthur that are only for Eames. He wonders about all of the little things in their relationship he must have overlooked. The list is probably extensive.

“It’s a long story, Cobb.”

“Hmm,” Cobb says, “Your flight doesn’t leave for another seven hours. We’ve got time.”

[2]

_Four years and eight months ago._

Arthur comes home at a quarter to five. The entrance way is dark, silent; Arthur pulls the gun from the back of his trousers, thinking of Eames twenty minutes earlier, hanging up the phone to open the door because his hands were full of groceries. 

“Eames?” he says, low enough that only someone listening for him might hear.

“Living room,” Eames says. His voice is chillingly monotone. Arthur hears him and hesitates before tucking his gun into his waistband, where he can still reach it easily.

Arthur walks slowly down the hall to the living room. The groceries are abandoned by the entrance to the kitchen. A loaf of bread spills from one plastic bag, lying forlorn.

In the living room, Eames is sitting on the sofa in the dark with his head tipped into his hands, bracing his elbows against his knees. He looks lost. The window is open and the curtains flutter with a cold breeze. A toneless ringing seems to be coming from outside. Arthur leans over the window-ledge and sees that the noise is made by their telephone, hanging precariously over the edge of the fire escape, saved from a further fall only by the curled cord. 

“What happened?” Arthur asks, his hand now resting on the gun. 

“My mother…my mother….” Whatever words there are to finish Eames’s sentence are lost to his grief, but Arthur doesn’t need further explanation. He sets his gun on the table, moving towards Eames and kneeling in front of him on the floor. Eames’s eyes flicker to Arthur’s as he looks up from his hands briefly. They seem hollow.

“The funeral is next Friday,” he says, swallowing. “At my aunt’s, in Bristol. You shouldn’t go, I suppose, but…”

“I’ll go, Eames.”

Eames sighs, looking relieved. Arthur feels very nearly hurt Eames thought he would have to go alone, but now isn’t the time. “I need to book room and flights and everything and---”

“Don’t worry about that,” Arthur murmurs, “I’ll take care of it. Tell me…tell me what I can do right now.”

Eames looks back at the floor, breathing shallow around what Arthur expects might be tears. “I don’t want to think,” he says, shakily. Arthur closes his eyes and presses Eames’s head against his chest, rocking him back and forth.

“Don’t think, then. I’m here…I’m here…”

\---

It’s England, so of course it’s raining. Arthur opens the door to the taxi, offering Eames his furled umbrella. Eames shakes his head imperceptibly. 

The walk around the back of the chapel and across the graveyard is long and wet.

“What was your mother like,” Arthur asks, his voice hard to hear over the sound of their shoes sinking into water puddles. Eames has been expecting the question for long enough that he’s imagined exactly how Arthur might ask it, so he half hears and half imagines Arthur’s words.

“We are…. We were very alike,” Eames says, and it’s the truth. “She was a forger, not in dreams, but in the real world. How to watch people, how to play them; how to gamble and win, and how to lose without losing, she taught me those things.”

“She was a criminal?” Arthur asks, sounding surprised. Eames doesn’t mind because Arthur says ‘criminal’ the way most people say ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’. 

“Until she met my father,” Eames replies. They’re near to the funeral party now. A crowd of black umbrellas collect around the open mouth of a grave looking like a flock of ravens. Eames draws almost imperceptibly closer to Arthur, and Arthur can feel when their hands brush together as they walk. 

“My father came from old blood,” Eames continues, distantly, “From _money_ – he thought he was giving her the world she’d always wanted, full of only beautiful things and genteel people. But he was taking away a different world. Maybe it was grittier, but it was more real. But that’s something you and I understand now, isn’t it. A fake beautiful thing is never as good as any real one. My father never understood that. Neither did my sisters.”

\---

Eames doesn’t speak until they’re back at his aunt’s house for the wake. His sisters gave the eulogy. Eames stood at the grave for a long time after the rest of the people had left, muddy to their ankles after the walk towards the train of cars. He thought of tossing the white daisies Arthur brought, but he changed his mind and flipped the poker chip he kept in his pocket next to his lighter into the dirt instead. 

Arthur walks to the house just in front of him, and the only way Eames doesn’t get stuck staring at the ground is by watching Arthur’s expensive Italian shoes guide him up the pathway.

Eames feels like he is in a silent film. His relatives are sombre, bloodless, the women all wearing dull shades of thick makeup, making their skin look flawless and sallow. The men pull out chairs for their wives like they’d never do back at home. People touch each other gently in silent communication. His cousin touches his arm, and Eames feels cold. He wonders if it helps other people, these touches, because they aren’t doing anything for him. 

Arthur’s hand slips up under Eames’s suit jacket to rest against the bracers looping over his shoulders. The small contact with Arthur feels shockingly hot, like the only point of colour and warmth in a greyscale world.

“Do you want something?” Arthur murmurs in his ear.

Eames shakes his head. He means to say something witty at the end, but all he can think of is, _Yes, my mother’s life back._ It’s not so much witty as bleakly tragic, so he only looks at his newly shined shoes. He watched Arthur shine them this morning, sitting on the floor in the front room of their hotel suite, carefully rubbing the blacking into the worn leather, as though so carefully and reverently repairing Eames’s shoes might have the same effect on the man who wore them.

Arthur gets him a glass of water anyway.

He sits down on an unoccupied sofa with the glass, suddenly worried that the water might freeze halfway down his throat. Arthur looks at him with the same expression he gets when he thinks Eames is about to make a mistake on a job.

“You seemed much better at home,” Arthur says. Eames considers the word _home_ , surprised that it means something to him – that it’s a real place for him. “You seem a little lost now.”

Eames’s sister comes by that minute, shuffling up to Eames and looking unhealthily pale. Eames wonders if it’s the work of the English weather or his mother’s death. He glances at her and murmurs shortly, replying to Arthur, “That’s what this place does to me,”

“Oh, _dear_ ,” she says, leaning forward to kiss Eames on the cheek. “I cannot believe that _this_ is what brings you home. What a terrible reason for us to see you again after -- how long has it been -- Christmas four years ago? You only ever wrote to Mum. Will we never hear from you again, now?”

“Sarah, I call when I can,” he says, tired. “You know…my job makes it difficult.”

Her small, wan smile disappears completely, “Your _job_ ,” she whispers. “Katherine and I aren’t stupid you know. We’re both aware that you didn’t run off at seventeen to sell insurance. Mum told us, after you left. Dad won’t speak a word about it, but we all knew.”

“What I do now…isn’t quite the same. And, please, this is not the time for that fight.”

Arthur, who has been standing in that still and silent way that makes people’s eyes glance over him without thinking twice, puts his hand over Eames’s shoulder, subtle but protective.

Sarah’s eyes shift to Arthur, and a look of near shock splits her shell of grief and anger. “Who’s this?” she asks, testily. Eames is a little worried she thinks he’s brought his lawyer for the Will from the suspicious way her eyes scrunch up.

“This is my…” he’s trying to say something to clear up any confusion, and yet he suddenly doesn’t have a word for what they are to each other. He wants a word, but he can’t think of anything to explain it. “…Arthur,” he finishes, lamely. From the rapid changes in expression on his sister’s face, the message got across regardless.

“I…I…what?” she says, and then catches herself staring and gaping, and reins herself into a carefully composed smile, “I’m pleased to meet you, Arthur. I didn’t mean to be rude, it’s just, this is…a first. My brother has never…”

Eames thinks she probably intended to say something like _introduced us to any of his conquests before_ , but stopped herself before it was too late. Arthur accepts her hand and shakes it firmly. “I’m charmed,” Arthur says, sounding a bit blasé.

Sarah makes Eames feel heavy and listless, as though her anger and grief is weighing on his shoulders as much as his own. He touches Arthur’s arm to let him know he’s going to get some air and stands from the sofa leaving Arthur to deal with the probing questions his sister is doubtlessly about to set in on. 

\--

He intends to thank his aunt for hosting the wake, but finds himself instead alone on the back porch. The rain has dissipated for the most part, but it’s still chilly and damp smelling. 

“Radcliff,” a voice says behind him.

“Don’t call me that, Dad,” Eames says. “It’s not my name.”

“And what are you going by these days? Are you cycling through poets again? Or maybe…”

“Eames,” he says, firmly, turning to meet the sharp gaze of his father, surprised to find it still so similar to his own, despite the years and miles of distance Eames has worked to put between them.

His father sighs. “Your mother’s maiden name. Was I so terrible to you, really, that you pretend I never existed for you?”

“That’s not…what I’ve ever tried to do.” 

“You sisters tell me that you brought…a man with you,” he pauses. “Is he…is he your…” Their gazes slide away from each other, and his father coughs gruffly in the back of his throat.

Eames laughs, short and sharp. “Don’t bother trying to say it, Dad.” Eames sneers, “You might hurt yourself. He’s not my boyfriend…he’s more, he’s my…”

It’s disarming how suddenly the word _husband_ appears on the tip of his tongue; unbidden and untrue, he manages to bite it back before it slips out. Even so, the idea of it is still there, settling on the edge of everything he thinks or says. It’s waiting. It makes Eames shiver, not unpleasantly. The feeling is like Arthur coming out of the shower and pressing his warm-wet hand to the back of Eames neck, making him jump.

“Never mind,” Eames says. “I told Sarah I’m not fighting the fights she wants from me, and I’ll say same to you. I just wanted to say goodbye to Mum. I’ll be gone tomorrow.”

“And that’s it, we’ll never see you again?” his father says, voice deepening into anger.

Eames feels a snarl creeping up and manages to smirk instead, leaning back against the porch railing and letting his arms go relaxed and loose, a contrast to the tight black line of his father’s shoulders bunched beneath his suit. It’s as ill-fitting as most of Eames’s clothes. He considers talking to Arthur’s tailor so there’ll be one less similarity between them.

“You made it perfectly clear that’s the way you wanted it when you kicked me out on my eighteenth birthday and told everyone I’d run away. I’m just obeying you, Dad. Like you wanted.”

“Maybe I’ve made mistakes, son.”

“So have I,” Eames drawls in a gravely whisper, “But this isn’t one of them.” He turns around and looks out at the garden purposefully. He can hear his father breathing behind him for another few minutes, and then the sound fades, following footsteps back into the house.

Arthur finds him, maybe twenty minutes later. He sets his elbows against the porch railing next to Eames and pulls the cigarette from between his fingers, taking a movie-star drag -- breathing the grey curls of smoke out of his mouth instead of into his lungs. Arthur never smokes, but he likes the taste and the smell on Eames. 

Once, in a sort of post-sex haze -- which is the best time to get secrets from Arthur -- he’d admitted to buying packs of cigarettes when Eames was gone and burning them just for the scent. He’d said he closed his eyes and imagined Eames sprawled across the sofa in the living room. He’d stopped himself from saying more then, and the tips of his ears went pink.

“Are you afraid of dying?” Eames asks, only for Arthur.

“No,” Arthur says. Eames wants to call him a liar, but Arthur wouldn’t lie to him right now. Arthur steps away from the porch rail and encircles Eames in his arms. It’s unusual for them but he feels safe inside Arthur’s embrace. Eames takes a shuddery breath and lets himself lean into Arthur heavily.

“Are you afraid of anything?” he asks, unable to help himself.

“Yes,” Arthur says.

Eames waits for the rest of Arthur’s answer, but he doesn’t say anything. After a long time, Arthur breathes out slowly and presses his lips to the soft hair at Eames’s temple. Eames tilts his head into the kiss and then shifts in the circle of Arthur’s arms, starting to pull free, but Arthur stops him, saying, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Eames asks, gently.

“Don’t go, just yet,” Arthur says, raw with an edge of vulnerability and answering two questions at once.

[3]

_Four years and six months ago._

“Fucking bloody hell, Arthur, fucking…fucking…it really hurts.”

“Just think of the morphine you’re about to get,” Arthur offers, pressing down harder on Eames’s left shoulder. “You love morphine. You say if feels _floaty._ ”

“I don’t feel _floaty_ right now, darling.”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, he leans forward and presses his forehead to Eames’s, which damp with cold sweat. “I know. You’ll be okay, you know. The bullet’s gone clean through.

“Oh, motherfucker,” Eames concludes, panting harshly. He really had forgotten how much it hurt to be shot. Distantly, he can hear the soft wail of sirens. He thinks about the morphine on its way, but it doesn’t help. 

He thinks about Arthur, instead. Nothing can be quite so distracting as Arthur. He considers blinking his eyes open so he can look at him, but that will remind him that they’re collapsed in the gutter of one of the many dismal back streets Los Angeles has to offer, and he’ll have to see his blood down the front of Arthur’s brand new suit. 

He’d much rather imagine them in the New York flat on the sofa with glasses of that white wine Arthur’s been obsessed with lately. He imagines Arthur waking from dozing away with his head in Eames’s lap; Arthur can never watch a film the whole way through -- he always falls asleep at the most climactic moment. Eames suspects it’s because all of Arthur’s adrenaline gets used up working, and he hasn’t got any left to expend on the supposedly exciting lives of fictional characters.

“The ambulance is here,” Arthur says in Eames ear. 

“I’m gonna fall asleep now,” Eames says, knowing he’s is slurring and not making sense and glad he’s able to blame it on blood loss, because he’s about to be unbearably pathetic. “You have to promise you’ll be there when I wake up. I hate…I hate waking up with just the fucking nurses and doctors and whatever…okay?”

“Okay, I promise,” Arthur whispers, completely seriously. Eames appreciates that Arthur always knows when Eames is joking and when he’s not.

Eames looses consciousness slowly, feeling the sudden presence of medics checking his pulse and preparing to shift him to a gurney, but he’s comforted by Arthur’s fingers still tangled in his hair. He feels movement – they’re wheeling him towards the ambulance now. Distantly, Eames hears one of the medics say, “Excuse me, sir, but you’re going to have to ride separately. Only family members and spouses go in the ambulance.”

“I’m as good as,” Arthur says, “If you check through his emergency forms, I’m listed as the main contact. He’s in pain, I promised him I’d stay with him, can we just go.”

“Look, sir,” the medic says as he cuts away Eames’s tweed jacket. “Only family members and spouses. I can fight with you about this, or I can get this guy to the hospital, which do you prefer.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Arthur says, sharply.

“Yes, you are.”

“You don’t want to cross me.”

The medic rolls his eyes, standing up as two other medics carefully lift Eames onto a gurney, “This is LA. Everybody thinks they’ve got some special friends or some special privileges. If you’re not married and you’re not his brother, you’re walking to the hospital.”

“You _don’t_ want to cross me,” Arthur repeats. His eyes are dark, and his face is hard. A chill runs down the medic’s back as he meets Arthur’s striking gaze. The medic thinks _he means that_.

“I…uh…fine, whatever,” he says, turning and swallowing thickly.

Arthur grins, knife sharp and humourless and climbs into the ambulance after Eames. He laces his fingers into Eames’s in an unusual display of public affection, and Eames knows he’s only doing it because he’s proving a point to the medic, but Eames takes what he can get.

\---

Arthur sits in a chair next to Eames’s hospital bed, yawning. His feet are propped up on the bleached white sheets bunched up at the foot of the bed where Eames had pushed them in sleep. The light is vague and purple with the dusk where it streams in through the window. Eames is drooling into the pillow a little; Arthur will probably tease him for it later. 

There is a sound at the door. Arthur looks up. A nurse is trying to catch his attention. She looks uncomfortable and her arms are crossed protectively over her chest. 

“Arthur, is it?” she asks, quietly. He nods in reply.

“I need to talk to you about Mr Eames’s insurance.”

 _Damn_ , Arthur thinks. He’s pretty sure that they haven’t bothered to renew or even pay attention to Eames’s insurance for the states in a long time. Whatever coverage he has must be expired by now. They’d been living in the Tokyo flat for the last year and travelling constantly the year before that.

“Sure,” he tells her, following her into the hallway. She walks him down the front office, and he thinks about the ridiculous expense this whole business is about to cost them. It’s not that they can’t pay the money right now, but he’s sure whatever they’ll charge is so exorbitant it hardly bears imagining. They’ll have to take jobs right away now, and with Eames having just been shot the risks will increase.

“Look,” he says, almost sagging against the nurse’s desk. “We’re pretty well tied together legally. There isn’t any loophole that puts him on my insurance? I have _great_ insurance.”

Arthur does have good insurance. It’s the best the military can do for hush money, and being part of the military’s original dream-training team means Arthur has a lot of information he’s supposed to keep quiet.

“It’s for spouses or dependants only, sir,” she says. Arthur grimaces. He watches the way her mouth turns down at the corners and the slight hunch to her shoulders and he believes that she wants to help them. “I know you can’t get married here, but you don’t happen to have some out of state license or civil partnership or something?”

Arthur frowns, and shakes his head. She sighs and hands his papers back to him. “There really isn’t anything I can do, then. I’m sorry, Arthur.

Arthur makes his way back up to Eames’s room with a cup of awful vending machine coffee. Eames is coming around, which Arthur knows because Eames always rolls onto his stomach just before he wakes. His hair is plastered to the back of his neck with sweat and he smells like the hospital. Arthur can just make out the edge of stubble along the line of his jaw. Arthur hesitates for a moment, and then touches his cheek. It feels familiar and good under his fingertips. Eames shifts to lean into the touch just slightly. 

Arthur thinks about what the nurse said. He could have used his insurance if they were _married_. Arthur hasn’t ever thought much about getting married to anyone, let alone Eames. The whole concept is new to him.

He tries to imagine being married to Eames. Not just with him, in a state of domesticity that already has more permanence than Arthur ever thought he’d find, but _married_. There would be rings, and pieces of paper in a legal file saying that he _belonged to Eames_. 

That Eames _belonged to him_. 

He’s surprised, not by the idea, but by the fact that he almost likes it.

[4]

_Four years and five months ago._

Arthur opens his eyes slowly, shifting luxuriously in the cotton sheets. Eames’s arm is hot across his stomach and he rolls into the unconscious embrace, yawning. The thin line of light escaping from the hotel blackout curtains is too bright so Arthur turns his face into Eames’s shoulder. It’s warm and dark there and Eames smells like earl grey and sea and sweat. 

“Mmm…morning,” Eames says, waking at the feeling of Arthur’s nose against his neck. His voice is sandpapery and sends shivers up Arthur’s spine. Eames rolls so that Arthur is caged between his arms, his knees slot in between Arthur’s thighs.

“Hi,” Arthur mumbles back, blinking lazily. He shifts so Eames’s hips slip into place against his own and lets out a harsh breath when he’s reminded of the bruises left by Eames’s desperate fingers the night before. Eames swallows Arthur’s gasp in a kiss. He pulls back but they’re too close together not to kiss again, and again, and Eames is shifting his hips up and down a little.

 _“Shit!_ ” Arthur crows suddenly, pushing Eames out of the way as he lunges across the bed to see the blinking green light on the alarm clock next to the bed.

“What?” Eames starts to ask, sounding frustrated at the lack of Arthur in his grasp. 

“We’re going to be _late_ , Eames!” Arthur says, throwing the covers off rapidly and launching himself out of the bed and into the bathroom. Eames feels lost. He looks around, his mind waking to a little too slowly. 

_Cobb and Mal are getting married today,_ he thinks, and then he glances at the clock too. 

“Shit,” he echoes Arthur’s previous comment blandly, and rolls out from the covers, stumbling after Arthur into the bathroom. 

\---

Arthur only returns to his usual state of collected calm when they’re pulling up in front of the church. Arthur let Eames drive to make up the lost time, and he swerved through the streets at some horrifically dangerous speed, taking back alleys Arthur is sure don’t exist and knows he’ll never be able to find again.

Like French Catholics everywhere, Mal is deathly serious about her faith when other Catholics are looking, or when it might be useful to her, and consequently the church she’s found is exquisite. Arthur and Cobb go around the back where a flower truck is just pulling away and follow paper signs for the wedding party. 

Arthur stops abruptly in front of the door and turns to inspect Eames. Arthur is looking as beautifully dressed as ever, but Cobb decided they all needed handmade suits for the occasion and there is something particular about the precise way the trousers fall from his waist, fit so perfectly, that causes Eames’s brain to short circuit if he stares too long. Eames starts to say something to this effect but Arthur gets there first.

“You look…good,” Arthur says after a moment. There is a light in his eyes that Eames has seen only a few times – Arthur looks almost weighted with desire. His hands reached up to fidget with Eames collar. The fine skin of his wrist is suddenly exposed by the French cuff slipping up just so, and Eames turns his face to it, sliding his nose across Arthur’s delicate bones. 

_Delicate_ is not a word most people use to describe Arthur. It’s not a word Eames uses to describe Arthur – except right here, right now, with the way he’s looking at Eames like Eames might be able to break him into pieces like no one else and Eames can hear his pulse and see the blue, blue blood of crisscrossing of veins.

“Is that unusual?” Eames asks, voice gravely and sweet with sarcasm.

“No, no,” Arthur says, slowly, transfixed, “Today, there is just something…”

“Ah! There you are!” The door they’re standing in front of flies open and Mal, in nothing but a bra and crinoline, looking slightly maddened, yanks them down a hall. “Let’s go, lovebirds,” she says, “ Dom is through there, and apparently he can’t tie a tie anymore. Tell him to stop trying to come see me. It’s terrible luck.”

Arthur and Eames are chased the rest of the way down the hall by one of her many cousins recently arrived from France. 

Cobb is standing in the middle of his dressing room staring blankly at the wall with only one arm through his waistcoat. Miles is sitting in a chair across the room looking tired and amused, and Cobb’s brother and a friend from college neither of them know very well stand on either side of him, watching Cobb a bit nervously.

“She’s not gonna go through with it,” Cobb says suddenly.

“What?” Arthur asks. Cobb turns to look at them, waiving faintly in recognition. 

“Why would she marry me?” he asks, sounding a little desperate, “I’m nothing compared to her.”

Arthur turns to look at Eames, clearly saying _what’s happened to him?_

“Okay,” Eames says, in two long drawn out syllables. “I think that you should stop thinking now, Cobb.” He grins sharply. “Miles,” he says, the turn of his smile now a little accusatory, “You must remember not to let our boy _think_ so much. He gets to far ahead of himself. Arthur, darling, dress him. I will find us something to drink. Cobb needs a little liquid courage.”

Eames locates a bottle of Vodka behind a stack of Bibles and Hymnbooks, which he finds briefly hilarious and a little nostalgic for his delightfully corrupt C of E boarding school childhood.

He pours them shots in paper mouthwash cups from the back of a cupboard and passes them around. “To Cobb and Mal,” he says, holding up his cup. “May they always remember what is real. That love between you – nothing will ever taste as sweet.”

They all drink together, and the tension begins to leak from Cobb’s shoulders. His shoulders start to straighten. By the time they’re ready to go, the confidence has come back to his face like a picture coming into focus. 

Just before they leave the dressing room to take their places at the alter, Cobb falters again and Arthur stops, waving the other four men to continue. Cobb’s brother, and the friend continue down the hall while Miles goes to Mal to walk her down the aisle. Eames takes a few steps but lingers in the doorway.

“Look at me, Cobb,” Arthur says, deadly serious, “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not…” Cobb begins, and then his voice wavers.

“Don’t be afraid,” Arthur repeats. His eyes flash up and catch Eames’s. A sudden understanding passes between them like electricity. _They are not afraid of what they are for each other, or what they could be._ The feeling is so pure it makes Arthur surge forward and grab a hold of Cobb’s arms, “This is not something you can be afraid of,” he says. His voice seems laced with a deeper knowledge than he’s ever held before. Cobb nods sharply, feeling that purity in Arthur’s words.

Cobb marries Mal. He is not afraid.

\---

The reception is downtown in one of the restaurants exclusive enough people only go if they’ve been invited. The garden and conservatory are sectioned off for the wedding party. The trees are ringed with fairy lights and the sky is so absolutely clear that even through the Los Angeles smog and smattering of glinting stars are visible. 

Eames gets into a riveting conversation with Cobb’s ex-professional poker playing Uncle about all the possible way of cheating in casinos and drinks the most ridiculously named martinis he can find on the open bar menu just to confuse the bartender.

Arthur waltzes countless fading great-aunts and awkward thirteen-year-old cousins across the floor. The exact angle of his arms and the careful way he guides them makes even the plainest suddenly graceful. Arthur’s seventh dance of the evening is with a woman who looks like a younger, thinner, and slightly less elegant version of Mal. She flutters her eyelashes at him in a way he finds a little hilarious.

After they dance he goes to lean against the bar and she finds him there a few minutes later. Her dress seems more low-cut across her breasts than he remembers. She throws her hair behind her shoulder and it cascades down her back in a fall of jasmine scent. 

“I am Marie,” she says. “You dance very well. Were you taught?” Her accent is lilting and satin, but Arthur is distracted as the thought of accents leads him to the thought of Eames’s accent, all rough vocals contrasting to the finely trained shape of his words, hot when spoken against his neck.

“As a child, yes,” he says absently, smiling.

“You are Dom’s Best Man,” she says, taking his glass of champagne when he sets it down and lifts it to her mouth, resting it there for a moment to draw attention to the fullness of her bottom lip. When she drinks she tips her head back, elongating the line of her throat. “How did you meet him?”

“We work together,” he says, “Business partners.”

“With Mal also, then?” she asks. She’s watching the shape of his shoulder now, careless of the answer to her question. Arthur decides he’s no longer amused. He turns his head out towards the crowd and sees that Eames, still seated with Cobb’s uncle, is watching him with a wide smirk. He tilts his head in a subtle _come here_ motion. 

“Yes, also with Mal,” he says, “And sometimes my husband.”

Afterwards, he’ll never be able to explain why he said husband instead of boyfriend or just a blunt _no thank you_. Actually, it’s not that he doesn’t know the reason, it’s that he’ll never admit it to anyone. 

The girl looks surprised and maybe a little insulted, though she hasn’t got a reason to be. Eames appears a moment later, and slides his arm around Arthur, low on his hips and under his suit jacket. 

“You are the husband, then?” She asks, raising one perfectly plucked eyebrow. Arthur is careful not to wince in any visible way, but he’s sure that Eames feels the way he tenses suddenly. Eames rolls with it easily. It’s his job to do exactly that, anyway. 

“That’s me,” he says, smiling charmingly. He turns to Arthur and presses his lips against the shell of Arthur’s ear, just in the place where it goes pink at the most inopportune moments. “It appears that you’ve forgotten to tell me something quite important about us, my dear,” he whispers, so softly it’s just the breath of air that Arthur hears instead of sound.

Eames pulls him outside to the edge of the garden away from the tables and people. Cobb and Mal are no longer talking to guests. They’re dancing, wrapped up in each other and ignorant of anything else. They seem distant and dreamlike through the glass conservatory walls, like watching an old film, and Arthur rolls his die between his fingers in the safety of his pocket.

“You should marry me,” Eames says.

All of Arthur’s breath leaves him with dizzying immediacy. The world seems to tilt slightly, but the feeling is too quick to be oxygen deprivation. He sways on his feet anyway. He spins on his heel to face Eames, but Eames isn’t standing, he’s…he’s actually down on one knee.

“ _What_?” he asks, unable to think more than a few words ahead of what comes out of his mouth, “Are you…are you _drunk_?”

“A little,” Eames says, “But that’s not an answer, anyway.”

“I’m just…surprised,” Arthur says. “Would you…” Arthur vaguely gestures to Eames kneeling in the grass, probably completely ruining his dove grey poplin trousers.

Eames stands again, understanding Arthur’s discomfort, “No you aren’t,” he says. “You aren’t even a little shocked. You know me too well.”

Arthur doesn’t know how to explain that he does and he doesn’t, that he is and isn’t surprised. The gap between knowing and happening is vast, and Arthur isn’t always sure he can make that leap. Maybe it’s why he works with dreams as well as he does. In a dream, nothing is really happening; everything comes down to how well you can know.

Eames grasps Arthur’s arms tightly, fervently. “I’m not afraid,” he says, “We’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

Arthur always knows when Eames is lying, and when he isn’t.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?” Eames asks.

“I mean yes.” 

[5]

_Four years and two months ago._

“I think you should keep your promise,” Eames says, blandly. He’s leaning against the railing of a canal bridge. It’s about eleven thirty at night and the water is inky black. The light from the restaurants along the road seems to be reflected to Arthur in Eames’s eyes and the darkened windows of houses and the shiny hulls of canal boats passing beneath them.

“My promise?” Arthur asks. He feels loose and warm where Eames’s arm drapes across his shoulders. The buoyancy must be some mix of wine and food and the rustling made by the tree leaves in the breeze high above them.

“You’re going to marry me.”

Arthur doesn’t tense, there is no fission of shock up his spine, instead he feels suddenly pliable, softening into Eames. One corner of his mouth quirks up into a teasing grin.

“Is that what I said?”

“You said yes.” Eames fumbles into his pockets and Arthur shifts to see what he’s doing. He opens his palm and the dim reflections of light reveal a small black velvet box. “This is yours,” Eames says, holding it up. “See?”

“I do,” says Arthur. (More than once.)

**Author's Note:**

> I have no factual knowledge about insurance in reference to civil partnerships or gunshot wounds, etc, so count this as my _that particular scenario probably couldn’t have really happened_ disclaimer… 
> 
> LOL EAMES IS CALLED RADCLIFF. It must be fandom tradition now to come up with bizarre names for poor Eames. Why doesn’t Arthur get teased to mercilessly? You can’t even tell if Arthur is a first or last name.
> 
> Last but not least, MUCHO THANKS TO THE LOVELY synaereses who, you will be delighted to know, vastly improved your fic reading experience by increasing the amount of swearing and decreasing the amount of miscellaneous comma usage and random tense shifts.


End file.
